How Not to Find Out Your Child is Autistic
Our son was two years old, and barely used any verbal language. I had been told so many times that “boys develop language later,” that I grasped onto that belief with little hesitation.
Six months previous, my wife had seen a news segment about autism, and for some reason she saw characteristics of our son. When she brought the idea up to me, I quickly rejected the idea. Our son was only 18 months old, how many 18-month-olds are speaking? Sure, he rolls his trucks back and forth repeatedly, but he just likes trucks!
Well, when Colton was 27 months old we finally asked our pediatrician if we could get his speech evaluated. We took Colton to the evaluation, and watched in horror as he failed so many of their “tests.” At the end of the evaluation, I could tell that something was wrong, just based off of the facial expressions of the testers. They, in the most polite way possible, told us that Colton showed several signs that were characteristic of the “autism spectrum.” Our life has never been the same since.
- Do NOT find out that your child is Autistic 6 months after you notice the first signs.
- Do NOT wait for your pediatrician to mention something. Just because their child was a “late talker” doesn’t mean that your child is.
- Do NOT ignore, or blow off, the concerns of your partner. If something doesn’t feel right, then there is a good chance that something is wrong.
Am I trying to make every parent paranoid? Well.. yes. If I had been paranoid, we could have diagnosed the problem 6-7 months earlier. What is the worst that could have happened? My wife and I would have had our son evaluated, only to be told that he’s perfectly fine. So we would have wasted a few hours. Big deal. If you feel that something is not right, even if you are a first-time parent, then take the actions needed to make yourself feel alright about the situation.
+1 for my wife.
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Comments
Your story sounds very similar to ours. TJ was about 39 or 40 months old too, and he also had a few months of speech therapy from 32-34 months old because he was delayed in speaking. I often wonder if the speech pathologist had any idea he might be autistic and just did not want to mention it, or if she really did not recognize it.
Also, we sort of discovered along the way the services out there to help. No one told us, we sort of stumbled on things ourselves. It SHOULD NOT be like this for parents of newly diagnosed children.
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I really like your blog, the design, the title, everything! I look forward to hearing more of your story!
All the Best!
- March Day
Our 4 year old is just now being evaluated in june. I too always knew since i was pregnat with my second son that something wasn’t right…mainly his social and his communication skills, his fits, and his hitting me.. Plus the repediness in his actions. I let my husband convince me otherwise but then found a book on SPD and AS and realized our son proabbly is both. Aspergers is so differnt the Autism so I never even thought about Aspergers because I didn’t knw what it was. I took away Wheat and gluten, he is allergic to dairy. And it has made a tremendous difference in him. My question is should i put him on wheat before he goes to his appt.so they can see him this way? Thanks for taking the time!
:)
Hi,
my elder son is suspected of mild autism has he is still not talking at 2 yrs+. He finally open his “golden mouth” at 2.5 yrs old.